Rain rain and some more rain. Torrential stuff. It didn’t start until 6:00 when I was leaving work. Looking out the window at work it wasn’t raining. When I got out of the elevator and walked out the revolving door it was sheets of rain hitting the street. Everything flooding. The town where Bill and I had Thanksgiving dinner is presently underwater, Yardley, PA. I hope Hiram and Chris are ok.

Things have gotten quiet at work. I might have hit a groove. I realize what my job is and it’s a good thing since both Linda and Felicia will be out next week, and next week is only a three day work week. It’s been a very slow week otherwise. It’s taking all week for Friday to get here and it still isn’t here yet. It could be because that I got the Village Voice on Tuesday when I usually get it on Wednesday.

Today is Bill’s birthday. He’s now 42. Born in 1964, June 29. Good for him I say. Juan is over and we just had some cake and some Guinness for Bill’s birthday. Very low key. Mellow. Which is more than fine by me. I’m exhausted from all the rain and exhausted from the work situation and still somewhat sad about Arif. I’ve been playing a lot of his stuff the past couple of days. Chaka Khan and the Rascals.

On the way to the Path I was playing Chaka and ran into Glenn Morrow, an old friend of Frank’s from McSwells days when Glenn was in the Individuals. Now I think he’s the president of Bar None Records. I’m pretty sure he is. When I walk down the street and run into him he always asks what I’m playing on the iPod. Told him it was Chaka. We talked about Arif. He didn’t know I worked with him for a spell.

I wrote a letter to the Daily News about Arif’s passing but it wasn’t published. The only New York paper that covered it was the New York Times, which is fitting since Arif was an avid reader.

Now the three of us are sitting in the humidity of the night. It’s no longer raining yet there’s no breeze. Coincidentally a slight breeze wafted over my shoulder as I wrote that. Mother Nature proving me to be a liar.

We’re watching a documentary on Langston Hughes. I’ve never read anything by him but his story is quite an interesting one. A major player in the Harlem Renaissance in the twentieth century. I’ve never seen Isaac Julien’s ‘Searching for the Young Soul Rebels’, which is also about Langston Hughes or at least references Langston somehow. Or maybe I’m going off on a tangent. I do know there’s a film called ‘Looking for Langston’ which I’ve never seen either. Actually I looked it up on IMDB. They’re both directed by Isaac Julien, but Young Soul Rebels has nothing to do with Langston Hughes. So that’s –5 points, but +10 somehow.

Bill had a part on ‘Rescue Me’, not the part he was told he was going to get, that of a bus driver, but he still worked nonetheless.

Happy Birthday baby.